


I am not afraid to keep on living, I am not afraid to walk this world alone.

by DrJackAndMissJo



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crisis of Faith, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, First Crusade, Homosexuality, Internalized Homophobia, Loss of Faith, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Revenge, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25448542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrJackAndMissJo/pseuds/DrJackAndMissJo
Summary: 1099, just outside of Jerusalem. Everyone says it's a miracle, a sign from God. He partially agrees, but the true miracle is in his dreams and heart.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 28
Kudos: 176





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer! As always, I don't own shit.  
> I did not put the Major Character Death warning because at this point it would be redundant, you clicked on this, you know what's about to come!  
> Title comes from MCR's Famous Last Words  
> Enjoy!

During his studies, he had been taught that Heaven was a quiet and graceful place where he would find all the answers to the questions that might populate his mind and that he would also be completely and utterly at peace with himself, in the light of the Lord. One could enter through its doors after repenting his sins in Purgatory, but those who lead an exemplar life in the Lord’s name would be able to walk right in, to simply follow the Light to his Grace and be joyful.

On the other hand, the fiery Pits of Hell were a place of eternal damnation, torment and madness. They were filled with screams and pain and misery. In order to be sent there one would have to commit heinous crimes, monstrous actions that weren’t atoned by the sinner and that could not be forgiven by Him. They were full of murderers and traitors and thieves and heretics and infidels and pagans and blasphemous people. And, of course, they were populated by the sodomites.

If there was one thing his seminary made clear, it was that sodomy was a disease, an illness of the body that only His Grace could heal. To follow such crude and unnatural instincts was to shy away from His Light for eternity.

Out of all of the groups of people that filled the Pits simply because of their existence and their immoral livings, it was definitely the sodomites that were mostly persecuted, especially while they were still alive. Many were forced to amend, to forgone their sinful ways and to beg the Father for forgiveness.

Niccolò was twelve years old, almost in adulthood yet not old enough to hold his own thought, when he realized how wrong he fundamentally was. His friends, the boys he played with around the streets of Genoa since he had memory, were starting to grow into maturity, were starting to be interested in girls and in the glory of war. Niccolò did not like the way their dialogues would turn, one day their mouth full of bread they had wrongly stolen and the other their eyes preying on the passing ladies that pretended not to see them and not to be bothered.

He liked the way they dressed, their colourful clothing and the modesty of their dresses. He had told his father as such one day, not understanding why it had become such a scandalous thought in his mind to be caught staring at one, but he was only regarded with scepticism. “ _You are still young, you will understand soon,_ ” his father had claimed.

But the years went by and he still could not comprehend all the commotion around women. Especially after his friends returned from private adventures that made him want to claw his eyes and ears out when they retold them, way too descriptive and not penitent at all. He had believed that their recounting of them was a way to show amend, to reveal their impurities to repent them, but he quickly saw the error of his thinking. It was a sin to commit to the flesh before one’s wedding, that much was very clear, yet here his friends were, not particularly caring that they would burn for eternity.

He decided to begin his studies young, as soon as he figured how impure and blasphemous his mind was, when his eyes began to linger too long on the wrong person and when his traitorous heart moved towards the wrong sentiment. He decided to cut the _wrongness_ inside of him as soon as it appeared, a weed needed to be eradicated before it infected the entire field, to abstain his flesh from any temptation. After all, it was when sin took physical form that the soul was lost. He could still be saved.

He moved in a monastery near Genoa, despite his father’s protests, knowing that his destiny laid in there, and focused on his work with zealousness and goodwill, never once straying from the path the Lord must have wanted him to follow. It was certainly what He had intended, when He made him. He had to repent, to be penitent.

Niccolò took his vows when he felt his soul was cleansed, purified from all of the improper thoughts. His demons had left him in alone, had stopped tormenting him with their impurities. For the first time, he was free of that internal turmoil that devastated him. He began living peacefully, working in community with his newly found brothers, ignoring the way his heart twisted as if something was missing. He didn’t have an answer for that pain he would occasionally get, sharply reminding him how utterly wrong and alone he was, whenever he was left alone to his own devices for too long or, on several occasion, even when he was surrounded by the other monks, but he had found a solution: the pain would quiet down with work and with the prayers. After all, their motto was ‘ _Ora et Labora_ ’ for a reason, he rationed. If their forefather had elaborated that concept, it must have meant something that held all of the keys to tranquillity.

Years went down quietly, peacefully. He was in agreement with the environment surrounding him and he was pure, untouched by the external world and its temptations. The day he accomplished his priesthood was his most cherished one: he had never felt such tranquillity in his spirit, had never felt so close to Him. His head was void of compulsion, empty of longing. His only desire was to shine in His Light and, for one moment, he had felt utterly in harmony. He had found his purpose, helping lost sheep to regain their path under His Grace, and he could finally understand why He had given him such a burden to shoulder. If it had not been for his impure mind, he would have not followed His Plan, failing to complete his vocation.

There was peace, or as much as there could be, in the little routine he created between his personal prayers, mass and the communal work he did in the monastery that he called home.

But times changed and his serenity got disrupted. The world was in uproar, the infidels conquering and disrupting the world, threatening the empires in the East with their brute way of living. Words ran of the Pope inciting French nobility to aid them, to cleanse their souls with the servitude and the help to their brothers in distress. Constantinople was in danger, words went, and Jerusalem, the Sacred City, had been compromised and taken away from the Lord’s Light.

His superiors were fretting as untrained soldiers began their march. For in the beginning, it hadn’t been the nobility or the military to answer the Pope’s call: peasants took part in a pilgrimage, with their wives and elders, only to be massacred just after leaving Constantinople by the Turks. Then came the turn of the real soldiers, trained and ready for war. In the following two years they managed several victories, but Jerusalem was still far and in danger.

His own bishop ordered all the monasteries to lend aid to the bellicose efforts to regain back control and they could not contradict the order. Niccolò himself was shipped away to Yafa alongside his people from Genoa, bringing aids and engineers to finally, after three years, end the bloodshed. He was not a soldier, he complained, he was only a devoted priest, yet it did not matter. Their order to fight came from Rome directly and the Pope’s will was the Lord’s. Clearly they were in the right.

As soon as the fleet attracted to the shores of Yafa, he could not contain his stupor. That was not the ruined and wounded land they were made to believe, devastated by the infidels and the pagans. It was fertile and pure and tainted with the blood of the dead. Niccolò prayed for their souls as he helped dismantle the ships for wood and prayed at night for his own, dreading the moment he would have to bear arms against an enemy. He was terrified of what it would mean for him, to take a life so willingly, for what in his eyes were futile reasons.

Perhaps, if he believed more in the cause, he reasoned, it would be more bearable. Yet he had made vows and he was forced to break them. He prayed the Lord would look with kindness at him, at his ruined soul that had seemed to just have mended from its turbulent past.

It happened on their tenth day there, the hot summer Sun shining down at them. He had awoken that morning with an impending sense of doom looming over his chest, the night tormented by nightmares of blood and dirt. His usual prayers didn’t calm him down, didn’t bring him their usual clarity.

His team had to help in the constructions, to supervise and act in case the infidels attacked. It had already happened once, a surprise ambush to one of their teams that culminated in a massacre, and no one was willing to repeat the scene, thus the monks and priests armed to the teeth, ready for the slaughter. Niccolò hoped that he would not have to raise his sword, that he would not take a life that day, but he knew deep down that if it was fated, it would happen whether or not he wished for it.

Once midday came and went, the tension in his shoulders eased a little. Surely they will not attack anymore, having wasted the morning.

But they still came, scimitars drawn as they ran towards their little assemblement. He and his companions had just finished their small meal, already moving back into their positions to complete the work they had left for the day. The heat made everything slow down, unaided by the full stomachs and the empty minds.

They were told to expect an attack yet were still caught by surprise.

It was a blur, all of it. It happened so quickly, that Niccolò wasn’t able to remember how it began truly, only able to recall the important things that happened during the fury of the ambush, or so he told his superiors when they questioned him, weary and visibly terrified.

He shouldn’t have remembered anything at all. But he did.

He remembered the sand under his sandals and between his toes, grounding him to that Holy Land he was to die protecting. He remembered the way his companions screamed and shouted orders to the engineers and the workers to scramble away, to save themselves, that they would hold them back, that they would protect them. He remembered the way the Sun reflected off the enemy’s armour directly into his eyes, the way their capes flew in the wind behind them, readying the air for the turmoil, their feet scraping the sand, readying the soil for the bloodshed. He remembered the air turn dry and cold in his throat, words dying in his mouth as he unleashed his sword and brandished it with both hands, unable to stop the tremor. He remembered the weight of his own armour, his own helmet. He remembered sending a prayer up to the Heavens, knowing that He would listen. He remembered taking a life and having his life taken in return.

That was all he told when asked, all he could say. He didn’t wax poetry of what he had felt as a sword passed through his heart, for he felt nothing. One moment he was upright, fighting, and the next he was on the ground, his vision blackening as the Sun shone above him, one last vision of His Power. It was emptiness and quiet and it was terrifying. It was all but a dream, one he would have never woken up from.

Except that he had, by some miracle the archbishop claimed, calling the Lord’s Mercy a good sign for the imminent battle. He had jolted up, hands immediately searching for the Cross he carried on his neck and for the sword he was supposed to always have by his side. Instead, he grasped dirt and sand, his eyes registering the setting Sun as his ears heard something heavy fall on the ground, followed by terrorised screaming.

He looked around himself: he was lying on the empty ground, his clothes still matted with his own blood; bodies were cold next to him, eyes closed and hands clasped over their unmoving chests, sacred ointments making their way off their foreheads and into the earth; there was a body in front of him, eyes vacant and grey hair, he wore simple robes and a cross at his neck, a little bottle open next to him, spilling its content on the ground. He couldn’t understand what was the commotion about. He had been stabbed, had been killed. This was supposed to be Purgatory, the place where he would be able to finally be free, or, worse, Hell. The place he dreaded the most. Yet it didn’t seem like either places, it was humid and hot and welcoming.

But he had been killed, he had felt the life leaving his tired body, had felt his legs give out, had felt the peace that he had been told would claim as Death laid its fingers on him. Then why was he still alive?

 _“It’s a miracle!”_ voices screamt around him as a bishop rushed towards him, making his way violently to witness what had just happened. The priest that was giving them their Last Rites had simply dropped dead, they said, as one of the dead rose! All the while Niccolò was still seated on the naked earth, unable to comprehend what had happened to him or why everyone seemed to have a newly found interest in him. He was only a devoted priest from a monastery in Genoa, after all.

But the voices still chanted in joy, in jubilee. Other called scared to sorcery, demons and blasphemy. 

Niccolò held his breath as he examined his own body, expecting to find it disfigured and bloody and hollow. Instead of the wound that he was certain he had been inflicted, there was smooth skin, untouched by a scimitar that had passed through his body and exited on the other side, leaving him to gasp for breath as he bled out. He tried to speak as men rounded around him, blocking the view of the Sun and forcing him to explain something he had no explanation for.

He was forced to recall everything in the following days, passing from priest to medic to priest again. He was examined, he was exorcised, he was punished, he was gratified. On the third day, his superiors had finally reached a conclusion.

So close to the siege, they claimed, so close to doing what the Lord intended for us to do, He sends a sign. They began to treat him with equal part respect and fear, made him seat at their tables and burn his fingers to prove of His blessings.

He had recounted those moments to exhaustion, until he wasn’t able to speak anymore, everyone asking him how he died and how he survived. Nobody asked him who had killed him, or if he remembered the man in front of him.

But he remembered.

Niccolò remembered the scimitar piercing him, he remembered tasting metal as the man opposed to him closed his eyes by his own blow, the action seemingly perfectly timed as they both plunged their weapons through each other’s hearts. He remembered the way the man’s hair curled under his helmet, he remembered the stubble on his cheeks, he remembered the way the man’s nose seemed to round at the bottom, following a straight line unbothered by time, he remembered how deep and profound his eyes had been. He remembered the way the man’s lips moved silently as he had fallen to the ground on his knees, undoubtedly saying a prayer before leaving the world, just as Niccolò had done himself. He remembered thinking that if that was the last thing he saw before passing away, that it might have been worth it. The man looked like an angel, like a painting, like a dream he shouldn’t have asked and have answered.

Niccolò had to pry his eyes away from the fallen soldier and to force them to look up, to remember his path.

The nights following the miracle, he still dreamt of him. He was surrounded by infidels, his own people Niccolò realized, as they analysed him the same way he had been examined. A small part of his mind screamt at him to look away, but how could he when all he could see whenever he closed his eyes were the way the moonlight reflected off the man’s jaw as he polished his armour during a sleepless night. Worst was that he didn’t want the dreams to stop.

He knew it was a dangerous line he walked and so he kept his peace. Nobody had asked him about the man that had killed him, nobody cared about another dead enemy. And he didn’t have to tell anyone.

But when he was alone, lying on the ground as he tried to sleep, he prayed for that man. He didn’t know whether he had been saved as well, couldn’t know. It would have been blasphemous, to believe that He had saved an infidel, a pagan. It would be sinful to hope for his safety. Despite a strange feeling in his stomach telling him that he had somehow, miraculously, survived as well, he couldn’t be sure and could not risk finding the answer. And so he prayed, wishing ruefully to be able to see him again outside of his dreams. Niccolò knew that was wrong, terribly so, but he couldn’t help himself.

He was lost in the way he could see the man laugh in front of a fire, the way his hands moved on a piece of paper to draw something, the way he seemed to still be alive. He didn’t know if the dreams were real or just a way for his demons to torment him, but he didn’t care. He had died and came back to life, had the peace he had painfully worked on taken away from him.

A peace than was given back in his dreams, more effortlessly that he could have ever imagines, as he saw the man every time he closed his eyes to pray.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am incredibly sorry for the delay, but between uni exams and personal problems I couldn't manage to keep up with the schedule I hoped to follow  
> Hope you can understand

The Sun hadn’t risen from his slumber yet, the Moon pallidly shining over them. It was a nice reprieve from the heat of the previous day, while the commanders and generals still tuned in the final details.

It would happen today, everyone whispered fervently. After the procession the week before, to gain His favours, the spirits of the soldiers had risen and the air was ignited with their enthusiasm. They would gain back the Sacred city, they could end the evil and punish the sinners that inhabited the city as if it was Babylon.

Niccolò woke up that morning drenched in his own sweat, images of two women battling an army all by themselves burned on the back of his eyelids. He had had similar dreams since that fatal day, visions of these two powerful women either in mundane situations or in dangerous fights, but he hadn’t given them much thought. His mind was too occupied with the images of the man he had killed and that had killed him.

He had not seen him anymore outside of his own wishful and awful thinking, despite being in many more attacks since that fatidic day. Once the general had confirmed his abnormality, his monstrosity, they didn’t waste time into sending him where danger was highest. The Lord had blessed him, and by proximity the entire Papal army, and he was their weapon to use.

And so they sent him in the heat of the battle, to assault enemies and defend posts. All the while he simply accepted his fate, not understanding why such a blessing or such a curse would have befallen him. And each morning he wished he was able to see him again, the mysterious man that tormented him at night and filled his mind with turmoil and ease. He prayed to be able to catch a glimpse of him, on the other side.

Most days it was only to understand whether he was alive and well, to confirm that he wasn’t alone in this madness. But other days, whenever he woke up upset from his nightmares or from the previous day’s struggles, he wished to face him once more, blaming the man for his misfortune. The infidel must have had something to do with the sorcery that had captured him, he reasoned as he used his sword to make his way through the enemy line attacking.

For if it wasn’t sorcery, then it truly might have been a blessing from Him, a blessing to their cause. But Niccolò couldn’t, wouldn’t, believe it: if it truly was what his superiors claimed, if the words they passed from mouth to mouth with fervent devotion to raise the spirits were truthful, then it would mean that He condoned their actions, that he justified the slaughter of many in His name. The slaughter of many of which believed in Him, only not in the same way they did, the slaughter of innocents.

Niccolò had always known of His benevolence, His kindness, His forgiveness. It was true, He was wrathful on occasions, but their current situation didn’t qualify as those circumstances. In their wake, the French soldiers had created only chaos and destruction, leaving a bloody trail behind them.

If it wasn’t a curse, then He wanted him to do the same. And to Niccolò that was the most frightening thought of all.

So he went to each battle they sent him, willingly and without arguing, desperately trying to find him again. He crossed each field with his sword high, cutting through the enemies as if they were made of air instead of muscles and bones, looking for that mysterious man that was plaguing his every moments. Never being able to even see him, always evading his search.

Niccolò had contemplated for many nights, after he was woken by the dreams of the two women being brutally murdered countless times, what he would do once he had seen the man again. Part of him truly wanted to kill him again and again, until his head became void of impure thoughts once more, until he did not get back up and he wanted to be killed in retaliation, just to end his torture. But another part, the part he had dedicated his entire life to erase, that he had spent all his life ignoring and pretending it didn’t exist, simply wanted to not be alone.

Prayer didn’t seem to calm him down, not when his mind was filled with dozens of stolen memories from the other man, who seemed to be able to utterly destroy his years of practice at hiding his emotions with a single dream in which he smiled like he was the Moon high in the sky, beautiful and powerful and mysterious.

And he hated him for those dreams, hated this man he had only briefly met once and that tormented him without a reason. But he hated himself as well, for his weakness, for his wavering faith and for his traitorous heart.

But those dreams hadn’t been completely useless: it was true that he had no idea of what to make of the two women, he could not understand what the connection would be between them, but the dreams of the man that had killed him turned to be rather practical, whenever they didn’t wake him up with impure thoughts and a thundering heart.

He was a soldier, like Niccolò himself, not a noble or a high ranking general, and therefore his visions didn’t bring forward battle plans and defence strategy in great details, but the little information he was able to obtain was incredibly helpful. Especially when he dreamt of the Northern wall too many times for it to be a coincidence.

The Papal Army had already planned to attack there, to breach the walls and free the city, but his superiors thought it would be best to send him to the Eastern Wall, where a least contingent of men would try to win the battle, but as soon as he realized that the man would be there, he asked to be put on the frontlines in the Northern wall, ready to face the infidel.

He wanted to let his longsword pass through his heart like his scimitar had that cursed day, wanted to let his blood water the dirt and wanted to see the light behind his eyes flutter down and die, leaving only a vacant stare. He wanted the curse that had befallen him to disappear, he wanted the Earth to swallow him completely.

He wanted for this madness to end and he knew, deep down in his soul, that the only way out was the same that had dragged him down.

The air was electric all around him, ready with thousands of orders that were shouted by both sides of the city walls. The infidels were still inside, the clangour of their weapons ringing into Niccolò’s ears as he finished polishing his longsword. All around him the soldiers whispered, hushed down their last prayers as they begged the Lord for mercy, to lighten their path to victory. After all, the bishops and the soldiers alike claimed, they were fighting in His name.

It pained him to admit that he didn’t care anymore about that. Niccolò had spent too many nights awake with only a fire keeping him company as he tried to understand even a little bit of what was happening. The moments of clarity and peace that prayer used to bring him were replaced, respectively, by the heat of a battle, the moment his longsword met an armour and stroke true, and by the height of his dreams about the infidel. 

He felt like a child, unaware of the world and terrified by the prospect of knowledge while craving it simultaneously.

He didn’t even realise his body was moving out of its own accord, following the march of thousands of tired feet as the soldiers around him parted they ways to let him move through.

Niccolò had become quite a legend. There was not a single soul in the Papal Army that wasn’t aware of their blessing, the soldier sent directly from the Lord, they had begun to call him. Many loomed over him like moths drawn to a flame, wanting to know his secret, begging him to bless them or to share his gift. Others were wary, scared and distant. They preferred not to be in contact with the abomination, they said, and he couldn’t blame them: if the roles were reversed, he wasn’t sure he’d want to be around someone who simply could not die, no matter how many times they pierced his heart.

He secretly preferred the latter type of soldier, the ones who would rather perish by their own hand than have his misfortune befell them.

He would do the same, if only he could.

The heat was unbearable, his armour and hood weighting him down as if they were made of rocks. In the weeks since the accident, the only familiar thing outside his dreams had become his longsword. He tended for it carefully, cleaning it and polishing it every night, sleeping with it sheathed and clutched against his body, his only remaining tie to the world. It saddened him gravely, to think that only a few months prior he was living in tranquillity in his monastery, tending the Earth and the souls of his congregation alike, surrounded by content and familiar faces that took care of him, and now he was on a foreign land, fighting alongside of people that were supposed to be his brothers but revealed to be nothing of the sort.

He was alone, lonely and terrified. But most of all he was angry. And if this war had taught him anything, despite it being entirely futile and useless and way too vicious to be associated with a noble cause, it was that he had now an outlet to let his anger and his frustration and his desperation loose.

He did not take pride in his killings, not like many soldiers and priests did, but he used his sword as quickly as he could, to cause the least amount of pain and suffering to his enemy. He couldn’t show mercy per say, couldn’t spare the lives of so many men that were only defending their homes, not when he was being paraded as a Gift from the Lord and as a beacon to violence and bloodshed, but he could give the soldiers that stood on his opposite side the mercy of a quick death, of a painless death, of a clean death.

The sound of a horn pulled him out of mind, bringing him back to the reality he had to live in. He hadn’t even realized that they had reached the city walls, too lost in his own misery. The engineers had done their jobs masterfully, the wall was breached and now soldiers run through both sides, eager for blood.

Niccolò searched the faces of his enemies, one by one as he passed them all with his longsword, uncaring of the way their scimitars and the high above arrows pierced his skin. He had too quickly realized that not only he could not perish, but that his body did not even scar anymore. His skin was clear of all wounds even before he could take the weapons out: an arrow jumped out of his own volition out of his shoulder, as if pushed away from the inside; the torn skin mended itself after being pierced by a dagger; his hand did not burn for long after he had plunged it into a fire.

The only decoration of an otherwise smooth surface was left by the piercing scimitar that had crossed his heart the first time. It didn’t pain him, not like he thought it should. He had spent many nights talking to the other knights, listening to them complain about an itch or a sharp pull over their healed skin whenever it was about to rain.

But the only times his healed wound would bother him, it usually was to pull him out of a dream, a nightmare about the infidel, his enemy, the man he accused of being the reason behind his cursed existence, where Niccolò could see him fall into the ground as he was killed, over and over again.

Niccolò did not like to think about why his heart would ache at the sight nor he wanted to find an answer to his silent unexpressed question. He just assumed that, when the time would finally come, he would be able to strike him down with his own sword, he would be able to look him in the eye as his soul left his body.

That he would be able to close his eyes and to not open them again until the Judgment Day.

He dodged the blows, unbothered by the corpses that had begun to fall to the ground. It sickened him to no end, the knowledge that his mind was able to ignore the devastation of souls around him. He used to mourn every single person he had ever met, he used to say his prayers for them, to aid them in their path in the afterlife, but not anymore. Death had become a quiet companion, touching everyone but him indefinitely.

He ran up to the walls remaining walls, making his way with calm and precision. He wasn’t in a rush, after all, Niccolò knew he was somewhere in there, fighting for his life and for his purpose.

He had quickly realized, after yet another ambush that did not bring him forward, that he was both dreaded and looked forward to the next time he would cross swords with the infidel. He had desperately tried not to think about the implications of his contrasting emotions, focusing instead only on his revenge.

He was a soldier on a mission, had been since he left his quiet monastery, only now his path was somewhat clearer. He had deviated from the war’s meaning, didn’t care anymore if the Papal Army managed to regain back the Sacred City. All he wanted was closure and to regain the peace that had been taken away from him, whether because of His Ineffable Plan or because of other reasons, and Niccolò did not care. All he knew was that he needed to meet him again.

And that he needed to kill him, once and for all. He really didn’t like to think about the implications of his emotions, nor about the fact that he had any. He longed to be void of his perversions, his corrupting feelings, his sins. A small part of him whispered that his problems weren’t rooted in those instincts, that his soul was already lost the moment he loaded off the ship into enemy territory with the intent to kill, yet his upbringing could not stop screaming.

He was doing the Lord’s Will, under Papal Orders, or so he had been told, and who was he to discuss and disagree with said orders.

Niccolò had begun to loose hope, the Sun beginning to shine brighter as it reached its apex in the clear blue sky, so at odds with the chaos and the devastation down on Earth. His spirit sunk lower that before, as he realized that all the bloodshed was futile, not only for his own purpose but also for the main goal of their war: there were too many infidels, they came out of the shadows and defeated his brothers, passed them through with their scimitars like they were made of air and water.

It was when he plunged his longsword in the heart of an enemy, the count of the bodies, too high to properly pay his respect to each and every, that weighted on his soul like boulders, impossible to remove and important to remember, that he saw him.

His enemy, his killer, stood on top of a fellow fallen soldier, face bloody almost behind recognition.

But Niccolò had seen that same face too many times in his dreams to not see him now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the sporadic uploading times, my sleeping schedule is almost as fucked up as my mental health and yeah. Sorry

He looked like a painting.

There were many in the monastery he used to live in, most of the mosaics that adorned the halls and kept him silent company in his meditations.

There were also tapestries, telling the tales of battles and glory and death, but the majority of the pictures were there to give their examples: they represented moments of quiet life, of peace and labour, all in His Light.

Niccolò had always been fascinated on the way they portrayed each subject, making even the tiniest detail stand out in a sea of colours. He could see the way they were intended, could feel the reason behind each image. He became moved and inspired, gazing at their familiarity, as he passed some of them on his way to mass.

They persuaded him of his choice, they seemed to whisper to him only, that his life belonged there, with them, with their beauty. They told stories and memories and lessons, and the reality seemed grim in comparison to them. He had rarely seen something as beautiful and as mesmerizing as a painting in real life, the world too corrupt and flawed.

And he certainly did not expect to witness such beauty in the middle of a battlefield, on the Doors of Jerusalem, as he killed and was killed in retaliation.

Yet, there _he_ stood, his scimitar scratching the ground as he removed it from a fallen brother on the ground, the blade deeply rooted in his fellow’s chest that made its way out slowly, purposefully. It was a captivating sight, the sorrowful expression clearly written on his enemy’s face as he murmured something, the words lost in the space between them. There was gentleness in the way he held the body of one of Niccolò’s brothers, despite the cruel and violent action he was committing. He lowered the fallen soldier to the ground, still murmuring what to Niccolò seemed like a final prayer.

He had seen many infidels perish, many killed by himself, and there was a consistency in their deaths: they all whispered prayers in their final moments, if they had the breath to do so. It was so similar to what he and his brothers did, different words with the same meaning behind.

It all made Niccolò realise just how futile the war was.

Yet he could not disobey direct orders, or he would be punished, stripped of his priesthood, of his life. And so he mechanically did what he was told, whispering his final prayers for the soldiers he met and for the lives he ended. Mourning for the soul he had lost in the process.

The midday Sun was shining high behind him and it painted him in its golden light, filtering through his hair as it was moved by the wind, forming a halo around his head. His face was covered in blood, a vengeful pagan deity that had no space in Niccolò’s world yet had cleaved his spot with nails and teeth.

Under his helmet, he could feel his hair sticking to his face, matted by sweat and dirt, as he raised his hand to shield his eyes from the blinding Sun and the image it created in his mind. His brain felt as if it was on fire, lit up with thousands of different memories that he had unwillingly taken from the man in front of him. He needed to erase them, they had no right to exist, to corrupt him.

It was a mesmerizing scene, one he could’ve stayed a thousand years witnessing, despite his better judgment, if it wasn’t for the raging chaos outside of his illusions.

Infidel soldiers took their chance against him, seeing as he stood alone surrounded by their fellows’ corpses, distracted by the sight in front of him. Niccolò raised his sword to protect himself from their attacks, making quick work of them mindlessly, his eyes never leaving him. He was distracted, but it didn’t matter: each blow he took healed immediately, while each blow he gave remained, causing the soldiers to fall to the ground, a clamour of armour that ringed in his ears. He couldn’t hear the battle drums anymore, couldn’t see the mass of enemies running up to him to stop his march.

His ears were filled with the rushing of his blood, with the beating of his heart that threatened to leap out of his chest with each second. His mind was focused entirely on that man, on the way his scimitar crossed over his brothers, on the stoic expression he could see from a distance as he grew closer and closer.

His brow was furrowed as he made his way through the enemy lines, ignoring the cries of agony that surrounded him.

He almost expected the man to come running down at him, a war cry leaving the mouth that Niccolò had seen stretched in so many smiles he could hardly believe it was meant to do anything else. But the man never came, he never moved closer to Niccolò and kept on fighting alongside his own people, ignoring his vengeance.

“ _He hasn’t seen me yet_ ,” Niccolò realized as he saw the man turn around to defend one of his fellow soldiers, turning fully, unaware of him ready to strike true. He began moving out of his own volition, as if his body was instantly attracted to his enemy. He all but ran the short distance that separated them as quickly as he could, his longsword making its way through the bodies of the infidels that dared cross his path.

He had thought many nights about what could happen if he ever saw him again. He had pondered in great details over the course of the weeks he had spent alone and lonely due to his curse. He would plunge his longsword into his heart once more, he would hit in the spot where his body met his neck, he would use the tiny knife he kept in his belt to cut the air out of his lungs, he would strangle him, bare hands wrapped around his throat as he watched the light leave his eyes.

In the end, his conclusion had been a simple one: he would kill the infidel in whatever way he could, dying as well in the process.

It would not matter if he died by his scimitar or by another weapon, all he knew was that he was supposed to finally perish by the hand of his own enemy, his first killer, his personal torture. As Niccolò himself had to be the one to finish him.

They had died together and at each other’s hands, all those weeks prior. They had to die together and at each other’s hands once more now.

As he grew closer and closer to his enemy, his back still turned to him, Niccolò couldn’t stop his mind from racing. What if this was a mistake? What if the curse could not break? What if it truly was a gift from Him?

But his body moved without a second thought, muscle memory raising his longsword as he was lost in a sea of silent questions that would never find an answer. It all didn’t matter, not now, not anymore.

He stroke in the same moment as his enemy turned around, the sword passing through he plaques of his chainmail armour and cutting into the thin tan skin. He could see the exact moment realization dawned at him, his brown eyes widening imperceptibly and simultaneously moving frantically, as he undoubtedly felt the blade pierce him. He let out a shaky breath, his lips trembling as he moved his hands away from his own body, blindly reaching for him with his piercing eyes never leaving his, solidly grasping Niccolò’s forearms and holding on for dear life.

Niccolò’s hands moved out of his will, circling the dying man in his arm and holding him up, close to his chest. He could feel his enemy’s heart start to falter under his palms, the blood seeping through the wound and staining even further Niccolò’s tunic.

He had hoped for this moment to bring back all the peace that had left his body the moment he woke up on the ground, the first time he hadn’t died. He imagined it as a sweeping wind that would blow his way, encircling him and restoring his tranquillity, mending his broken heart.

He should’ve realized nothing of the sort would’ve happened long before setting foot on the battlefield.

There was no glory in death, he realized painfully, swallowing his emotions down. There was no quietness there as he saw his enemy, the man that had first killed him so many days before, the same man that had filled his mind with ease and dread and panic, bleed out in his arms.

Niccolò did not harbour hate in his heart: not for his superiors that had dragged him all the way across his world, so far away from his home, for their pathetic glory; not for his fellow brothers, who were right in their fear; and he most certainly did not hate the dying man in his arms.

But he despised himself, for following orders, for not being able to walk through the Gates and rejoice, for murdering innocents. He hated himself for the way this man had cleaved a space in his brain and for his traitorous heart. He hated himself for taking his life.

It was quick, the way the light disappeared from the man’s eyes, the way his breaths became shorter and shorter until they did eventually stop altogether. One moment the infidel’s body was convulsing, reacting to the shock and the wound, and the next it was limp in Niccolò’s arms, eyes closed and lifeless.

He could feel his own heart slow down as the reality closed down on him.

He had murdered his enemy, killed the man that had begun his own Hell. And nothing had happened. There had been no shift in the Earth below him, the skies hadn’t opened up, destruction still persisted around him but it was still manmade.

Niccolò still held the lifeless body close to his chest, expecting a reaction or some motion. He studied his face, begging for the man to wake up from his slumber. He gazed at the peaceful expression the infidel wore: his browbone had relaxed, smoothing the furrow his face had taken during his fights. It was a far cry from the serene quietness he had seen during his stolen dreams, yet it filled his heart nevertheless.

He had expected the world to stop on its tracks, the moment he had plunged his sword in his enemy’s side. He had expected his heart to be enraged or content. He had expected a sword on himself, cutting the air off his lungs, taking his miserable life off of him.

He certainly did not want to stand on a raging battlefield, arms wrapped tight around a dead man that had plagued his nights, as his heart broke in pieces at the realization that he would never be free of his curse.

He lowered him to the ground with too much gentleness, way more that it would be acceptable considering he was an infidel and it was his purpose to kill him. But Niccolò did not care at the moment, not when the man looked asleep and peaceful, his hair askew and his chest unmoving. 

In a matter of instants, Niccolò had lost himself completely. His faith had abandoned him, _He_ had abandoned him alone in the Earth, cursed with the burden of existence. He had believed in the Higher Cause, he had done as he was told, losing his soul in the process.

All his life, he had wanted to repent, to be able to walk through the Gates and rejoice. The pain of knowing that he might never get there was more devastating than all his battle wounds, than all of his scar-less battles.

Torment was eternal for those who took their own life before the Lord had called upon them, for those who emulated Judas not only in their betrayals but in his final actions. But, Niccolò realised with a sharp pain in his chest, his heart beating fast and violent, he would not die, his constant living would be his eternal punishment.

With tears swelling his eyes and blurring his vision, he began to walk away from the body of the person he had thought could understand him, raising his longsword and readying to defend his brothers in arm. His mind was clouded, too many thought taking place at the same time, until one only managed to climb its way to the top and terrify him.

Niccolò had never wanted to fight, never wanted to kill, but he had yet to realize that the only solution for him would be to, simply, _leave_.

He would not find peace again, not on a battlefield and certainly not back in his little monastery. He had seen too much, done too much; it would be all but wishful thinking, to believe he could find happiness back where he had lost it, that he could find faith now that it had been stripped completely from him.

He did not what Deity could be as vicious and as violent as the one his superiors worshipped and claimed to be the Lord, miring His name and destroying His wishes of peace and justice with their own wills, but it was not His Father, the one Niccolò prayed to as he was lost in the desert.

And if he went back to their camp, if the war was won and the survivors could go back to their homes, what would be of him then? Undoubtedly he would be accused of witchcraft and burned at the stake, or imprisoned for his sins, or endlessly tortured. Would it truly be best to disappear, to leave the life he had once craved yet now couldn’t fathom to come back too?

He had too much blood on his hands and darkness on his soul for that.

Suddenly, as if with that realization, the wind came to an abrupt stop, its raging stilling the air and elevating the sounds of the dying and the fighting. He knew better than to consider it a Sign, yet his heart sung nevertheless.

Niccolò looked around the battlefield, searching for a way out of the massacre and the destruction. He had to seize the moment, none would believe him a deserter, not with the countless bodies already unrecognizable.

His brothers would weep, his monastery would mourn and he would be far away, desperately trying to wash the blood out of his hands.

He took a step forward in the same moment as something struck down on his face, crossing his nose and slicing his skin. He immediately felt the wetness of his blood sweeping over his face, filling his mouth as he was unable to breathe. He fell down on his knees as a figure stepped in his view, scimitar in hand as he obscured the Sun behind him once more, his eyes now burning with a fiery vengeance.

As the world faded from his view, all Niccolò could see was his enemy, standing proudly over him. He had hoped for this, had prayed for darkness to swallow him and let him rest. He was now praying for it to be the final time his heavy eyes closed.

His last thought had always been to Him, since the first time he had died. Now it was replaced by a sentence that electrified him and terrified him.

_“He looks like a painting.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was supposed to write another chapter but i decided to leave it like this...  
> Let me know what you think please, comments are always welcome!  
> Also come and scream about those idiots with me on Tumblr!!

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!  
> PLEASE, COMMENT!!  
> I have thought excessively about this timeline  
> Special thanks to @novapearlgray for the moral support and the patience in hearing me rambling, you're the sweetest!  
> Thanks again,  
> Jo


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